Sat., Jan. 12th

We had a great time a week ago with a post-Christmas gathering with Jason's side of the family at Aunt Ellen and Uncle Dick's house. Dick took some great pictures of the cousins, Sarah, Sean, and Gabriel (Jason and Meghan's cousin, Steve's son). It's fun to see the kids start to notice each other more and interact. Jason also had a fun time putting on a puppet show for Gabe who was a captive audience.

Not much else is new our way. Jason is working hard to get all the details lined up for the band trip to California in March. He's arranged some clinics with the members of the Gordon Goodwin Big Band which I'm sure will be amazing. If you've never heard the band before, check them out at http://www.gordongoodwin.com/. The guys in the band are major studio players and are great clinicians. Anyway, it will be exciting for the students. I'm excited to go along and see it all take place.

Kim and I went wedding dress shopping for the first time. We have another stop or two to make this week. It's exciting to be a part of this time in her life. She's under a bit of stress with the wedding, the eventual move to Virginia, and finding a job, etc. She seems to be handling it all very well. All the details for the Jamaica wedding are coming together and will be a blast. How romantic...married by an ocean view. Of course, I'm still in denial about her moving. Any time I really think about it, I want to cry. While I'm sooooo happy for her that she's marrying the man she loves and moving forward, I'm going to miss her terribly. She and Sarah are quite attached to one another, as well. You should see Sarah light up and barely be able to contain herself when Kim walks in the house. Luckily, cell phones and computer webcams will keep the connection going and we'll always look forward to the next visit. Now I'm crying. See...I should just keep repressing it until it's actually here. :)

I had a lovely outing with my girlfriend, Susan, today. We met for lunch at Panera and then went to see a "chick flick", "P.S. I Love You". I enjoyed it, but I'm a sap. I'm always a sucker for a movie like that. It was great to see Susan and get caught up on one another's lives.

Jason and I just watched the movie, "Running With Scissors". Very messed up. I can't believe it was a true story. I didn't even recognize Joseph Feinnes (sp?) as one of the characters.

Well...I think I'll head upstairs and either read one of my many books on raising toddlers (I need all the help I can get) or escape into a Nicholas Sparks book.

Bye for now.

Well, here it is at 11 p.m. on Friday night. I'm having trouble sleeping due to an annoying cough so I came down to the basement to sleep. Since I couldn't sleep, I decided to post a quick entry.

You can see in the picture above that Sarah likes to sit in Sammy's bed once and awhile. Should I be worried? Grandma Whitehead especially likes it when she lays down in it. (Ha!) Then there's poor Sammy. I caught her sleeping on the stuffed animals and had to take the picture. She's definitely realized she's not "numero uno" anymore since Sarah came into our lives. She's pretty tolerant of Sarah. We feel bad that we don't get out on as many walks or play with her as often. I haven't included her in many pictures on the blog so I thought I'd put this picture in. She's so cute...especially when she's sleeping!

Jason had a little scare this morning at 4:15 a.m. He woke up with a cramp in his chest and he was sure his lung had collapsed again. The wheels started turning in our heads on how we'd get to the hospital, arrange care for Sarah, etc. Instead of going to the emergency room right away, Jason got in the shower in case he'd be at the hospital for awhile. He felt better afterwards so he decided to wait until the urgent care clinic opened. After they took an x-ray, they determined he didn't have a collapsed lung or pneumonia. They did see some inflammation on the lung. He's been nursing a cough since Christmas so they put him on an antibiotic. We were very thankful to know it wasn't a collapsed lung since they may have had to do more extensive surgery.

So I've pretty much been up since 4:15 a.m. What am I still doing up?!!! This darn cough. I better try to get to sleep since Sarah's internal alarm is unforgiving.

Nephew at Christmas

Spaghetti Time

Sarah was having fun feeding herself spaghetti last night. We also got a good photo of her reading her book with Sammy in the chair. She does love her books.